{"id":12709,"date":"2022-01-19T10:00:04","date_gmt":"2022-01-19T15:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/?p=12709"},"modified":"2025-10-10T14:41:15","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T18:41:15","slug":"the-alchemy-press-book-of-pulp-heroes-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/2022\/01\/19\/the-alchemy-press-book-of-pulp-heroes-2\/","title":{"rendered":"‘The Alchemy Press Book of Pulp Heroes 2’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Okay, round 2. Some time back I did a review of the first Alchemy Press Book of Pulp Heroes<\/a><\/em>. And I was a bit disappointed. Well, a lot disappointed.<\/p>\n

\""The<\/a>As I’ve noted, New Pulp<\/a> is great, but too many slap the word “pulp” on works that have little to do with pulp fiction. And if you are going to put out a volume of “pulp heroes,” then please give us a volume of pulp heroes<\/em> \u2014 not stories based more on comicbook heroes. Not stories that would better fit into a volume of adventure tales or detective tales. And certainly not postmodern tales that deconstruct the hero, or give them a lot of emotional\/psychological baggage. Pulp heroes have none of that. Give us tales with larger-than-life heroes that would or could have appeared in the pulp magazines. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.\u00a0 I feel I should be channeling Razorfist<\/strong> and his mantra of “reject modernity, embrace pulp heroism”.<\/p>\n

So I have picked up The Alchemy Press Book of Pulp Heroes 2<\/em>. Alchemy Press<\/a> is a British publisher which have several anthologies, and this one is again edited by Mike Chinn<\/strong>. Chinn created pulp-inspired hero Damian Paladin<\/strong>. They have done three “pulp hero” ones so far.<\/p>\n

This time we get 14 works by various authors, only a handful who have done what I’d call New Pulp. We even get a classic reprint from the pulps. Maybe part of the problem is that if this is a collection of British authors, they really don’t have much experience with pulp fiction, which was a largely American phenomenon. But let’s see how they do.<\/p>\n

Oh, and the cover this time is a reprint<\/a>. The piece by Les Edwards<\/strong> was used in the first (and only) I.V. Frost<\/strong> volume by Fedogan & Bremer. It is a nice work, and most appropriate for a pulp-hero collection. Let’s see if the interior lives up to the outside.<\/p>\n

From Chico Kidd<\/strong>, we get “Pandora’s Box.” So if you know the legend of Pandora, you might have an idea. A sea captain in modern times (I think) finds the box and has to figure out to how close it. Sigh. We’re not off to a good start here. A new Carnacki<\/strong> story from Kidd would have been better.<\/p>\n

Next, in “The Flyer” by Byrn Fowly<\/strong>, we get a detective story were the P.I. is asked to find a missing aviator. It turns into a bizarre sf story with UFOs. But there’s no pulp hero.<\/p>\n

We then get a reprint from the pulps. Arch Whitehouse<\/strong> was a former World War I pilot who wrote for the air pulps, and one of his works was the air-pulp hero The Griffon<\/strong>, who is being reprinted by Altus Press\/Steeger Books<\/a>. So we get a proper pulp hero. This is his second story, so is reprinted in the first collection.<\/p>\n

In Pauline E. Dungate<\/strong>‘s “Night Hunter,” we have a hunter named, uh, Hunter<\/strong>, who is after a big cat in England killing sheep. Yes, this is something people believe happens. But when a woman shows up who is a “weretiger” and tells him he’s after another “weretiger” who is also a drug smuggler, things get weird \u2014 not the least being what makes this pulp? Another no here.<\/p>\n

We get a western tale in Marion Pittman<\/strong>‘s “Meeting at the Silver Dollar.” But it’s more a post-modern western, as a young man wanting to be a gunslinger hero is talked out of it by his hero, who is now a town sheriff. So, no pulp hero.<\/p>\n

For a change, we get a post-apocalypse sf tale in Ian Hunter’<\/strong>s “The Monster of Gorgon.” Our “hero” for some reason wears a hood and calls himself The Wraith<\/strong>. But he’s not much of a pulp hero.\u00a0 In fact, I had to work to figure out the “world” this was set in.<\/p>\n

“Dragon’s Breath,” by Anne Nicholls<\/strong>, is set in China of the 1920s. And I’m not sure who the hero is here. We have a young woman trying to free her little brother from slavers, who is aided by a Englishman working to end them as well. We get a pirate queen. And we learn the Arab slave trader isn’t an Arab, which isn’t explained. But, again, no pulp hero.<\/p>\n

We get another detective tale in “The Laws of Mars,” by Robert William Iveniuk<\/strong>. But it’s set on a Burroughs-esque Mars, and our detective is a human looking for who killed the ambassador from Earth. Again, I don’t count detectives as pulp heroes, no matter the setting, unless they are occult detectives or have some unusual qualities, which this one doesn’t.<\/p>\n

A return from volume 1, Willaim Meikle<\/strong> has been writing several new stories of Arthur Conan Doyle<\/strong>‘s Professor Challenger<\/strong>, and “The Penge Terror” is one of those. Another good work. I would count this as one.<\/p>\n

In Andrew Coulthard<\/strong>‘s “Ula and the Black Book of Leng Yen,” we get a sword-and-sorcery story where the woman warrior Ula<\/strong>, teamed up with a bunch of pirates, is on a quest that turns out to be something else. It’s a good tale that would have been great in a sword-and-sorcery collection. But there’s no pulp hero. For me, I don’t view Conan<\/strong>-like characters as such. Or Red Sonja<\/strong> -types.<\/p>\n

Martin Gately<\/strong>‘s “The Sons of Crystal City” was reprinted in a collection of his work I reviewed<\/a>. In a story set in Detroit in the 1960s, we get vigilantes Kibosh<\/strong> and his partner Knighhand<\/strong> going against a Japanese-American gang, the Sons of the Crystal City. There is very much a Green Hornet<\/strong> and Kato<\/strong> vibe with these two, and it would be interesting in seeing further stories with them. So I’ll count this one.<\/p>\n

Another return from volume 1, we get Adrian Cole<\/strong> with a Nick Nightmare<\/strong> story. Nightmare is a hard-boiled detective who has become an occult investigator. Cole has two collections of Nightmare stories, and this one was reprinted in the first volume. I’ll also count this one.<\/p>\n

Next up, we get a planetary-romance tale, with a former WWI British pilot on an alien world where he is now a hero and husband to a princess, in “Do Not Go Gently” by Stuart Young. But unlike a pulp hero, he is burdened by an occurance in that war. This preys on his mind as he works to save his princess. So I can’t really count this one either.\u00a0 This could have been a John Carter<\/strong>-type story, but it was too modern to be pulp.<\/p>\n

Finally, we have Mike Resnick<\/strong>‘s “The Incarceration of Captain Nebula.” Our hero is Captain Nebula<\/strong>, who comes to Earth from another world to save us. But things don’t go like they should. This story could have turned out a few ways. I would have liked it to have gone a different way. So, one more.<\/p>\n

So 14 stories. I only count four pulp-hero tales, plus the reprinted one. In volume 1, I counted three. So it’s a little better than the first volume. I don’t know if I’ll get the third volume. Frankly, Airship 27<\/a> has done better with their Mystery Men (& Women)<\/em> series than Alchemy. Again, not that these story are bad<\/em>, they aren’t.\u00a0 It’s just that most are not<\/em> pulp heroes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Okay, round 2. Some time back I did a review of the first Alchemy Press Book of Pulp Heroes. And I was a bit disappointed. Well, a lot disappointed. As I’ve noted, New Pulp is great, but too many slap the word “pulp” on works that have little to do with pulp fiction. And if […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":13164,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_has_post_settings":[],"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"The Pulp Super-Fan looks at \"The Alchemy Press Book of Pulp Heroes 2.\" #newpulp","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[7,14],"tags":[668,613,664,507,614,273,663,665,667],"hashtags":[],"class_list":["post-12709","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-pulp","category-review","tag-adrian-cole","tag-alchemy-press","tag-arch-whitehouse","tag-martin-gately","tag-mike-chinn","tag-nick-nightmare","tag-professor-challenger","tag-the-griffon","tag-william-meikle"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/files\/2021\/11\/alchemy-press-book-of-pulp-heroes-2-featured.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3eLo8-3iZ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12709"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13100,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12709\/revisions\/13100"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12709"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12709"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12709"},{"taxonomy":"hashtags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepulp.net\/pulpsuperfan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtags?post=12709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}